The application of ecosystem services (ES) is at the frontier in ecological planning and has attracted increasing attention in recent years. The China’s Grand Canal, a UNESCO world heritage site, is the longest artificial river in the world. The Canal is an important heritage corridor, and plays a role in the history of transportation, politics, military, and cultural exchange in China. It was the main artery joining the south and north of China. The functions of the heritage corridor have been eliminated at present. The Canal became a conduit for the disposal of wastewater; consequently, its water quality deteriorated. Ecosystem services declined as well. Modern ecological theory has been applied in ecological planning to recover the cultural services and increase landscape sustainability. To improve environmental quality and optimize the ecological pattern, we redesign the waterfront landscape, and establish a wetlands system and environmental governance. These measures can provide synergistic effects, especially in the restoration of historic landscapes and cultural services. Implementing the ecological planning has resulted in a 67% increase in ES. Cultural and regulating services have replaced regulating and supporting services, becoming the major ES. Ecological planning is essential in restoring cultural services and implementing ecological renewal. The method is useful in sustainable landscape management of the heritage corridor. This paper reports on a practical technology in the application of ES in ecological planning. The synergic effects of ES can revitalize the ancient Canal heritage corridor, giving a new connotation to the idea of ecological civilization. The cultural heritage can be developed and preserved in landsenses ecology framework. The research will provide scientific bases for heritage planning and management.

Since 1978, China has undergone an institutional reform, from a welfare-oriented housing allocation system to a market-oriented one. But with high housing prices, affordability is a major obstacle to home ownership for Chinese citizens. Now, the government has started to change the goal of housing policy from present economic benefits to sustainable housing, so future generations will have a decent place to live. Housing is an important indicator for social stratification, and home ownership, which is an important component of social sustainability in the Chinese context, is influenced by multiple factors that vary across countries. Although China has a long tradition of home ownership, there is a lack of comprehensive research on post-reform housing inequality. By undertaking a large-scale field study in the city of Xiamen, our research explored to what extent home ownership varies across socio-economic classes, and improves understanding of the reasons behind home ownership inequality. It was discovered that people have a variety of resources from which housing can be obtained, and that commercial housing served as the primary housing source, although, due to path dependence, public housing still comprises an important source of housing, as well as self-built houses. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to further explore the driving forces of home ownership inequality. The model indicated that hukou (household registration) status has the strongest effect on home ownership, followed by education, with family income and occupation as less important factors. Along with income and education, home ownership has a direct effect on people’s perception of their own socio-economic status (SES). A probability model of home ownership was developed, based on logistic regression. Local families with higher levels of income and education with at least one member working in a publicly owned organization had a higher probability of home ownership. Lastly, since 1999, housing reform in Xiamen has tended to increase social stratification, with negative economic and social consequences. Therefore, policies should pay more attention to the welfare of renters and integrating the migration process into urban planning.

To reveal the relationship between rural development and ecosystem services and to assist in efforts to balance these factors, we used a coupling model to carry out a study of the relationship between rural development and ecosystem services in Fujian Province of China during the years 2000 to 2015. First, we characterized the degree of rural development for each county in the province by calculating its index of relative rurality (IRR) and classified the counties into rural development types. Second, we calculated the values of three ecosystem services (ES) and overlapped them to get the sum of ES for each county. Third, we calculated the coupling and coupling coordination degree and analyzed the correlation between IRR and ES in the study area. The results showed that the mean value of IRR declined over the study period, was positively correlated with ES, and the correlation degree increased year by year. Meanwhile the degree of coupling was in the antagonistic stage, but tended to run in stage with a highly coordinated stage coupling coordination degree, if the business services type-counties were excluded. Although the overall coupling coordination degree was high, it declined yearly, which meant that rural development and ecosystem services increasingly lacked coordination. This paper supports and verifies some achievements of rural development programs in the research area, provides theoretical and decision-making support for coordinated rural development and ecosystem services protection in China, and provides a regional case study that could assist with similar research in other countries.

Anthropogenic activity interacts with urban form and inner metabolic processes, ultimately impacting urban sustainability. China’s cities have experienced many environmental issues and metabolic disturbances since the nation-wide market-oriented “reform and opening-up” policy was adopted in the 1980s. To analyze urban reform policy impacts and metabolism sustainability at a settlement scale, this study provides an integrated analysis to evaluate settlement metabolism and sustainability using a combination of emergy analysis and sustainability indicators based on scrutiny of two typical settlements (one pre- and one post-reform). The results reveal that housing reform policy stimulated better planning and construction, thereby improving built environmental quality, mixed functional land use, and residential livability. The pre-reform work-unit settlements are comparatively denser in per capita area but have less mixed land use. Housing reform has spatially changed the work–housing balance and increased commuting travel demand. However, short commuting distances in pre-reform settlements will not always decrease overall motor vehicle usage. Integrating non-commuting transport with local mixed land-use functional planning is a necessary foundation for sustainable urban design. Functional planning should provide convenient facilities and infrastructure, green space, and a suitable household density, and allow for short travel distances; these characteristics are all present in the post-reform settlement.